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WEHM All Access - EHM Breakfast Show w/ Harry In-Studio- Pete Yorn

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0:00 | 27:51

 Pete Yorn joins Harry Wareing in the 'EHM studio for a laid‑back, wide‑open conversation about his new album All the Beauty and 25 years of Music for the Morning After. He talks about the fans who’ve grown up with the record, his creative partnership with Jackson Phillips (Daywave), the Malibu nights that sparked their work together, and how life, fatherhood,  touring and more keeps reshaping his songwriting. Pete also looks back on his Syracuse days, the talent‑show moment that changed everything, and the long road from dorm‑room demos to a Columbia Records deal. Plus: two live acoustic performances, stories behind the new songs, and a little Knicks talk for good measure.

@PeteYorn

Pete Yorn's New Album "All The Beauty"

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SPEAKER_00

Welcome to EHM All Access. My name is Harry Waring. This podcast is a chance to get more in depth with EHM artists and share all of it in one place. So please subscribe and thank you so much for listening. On this episode, we celebrate the release of Pete Yorn's latest album, All the Beauty. Pete joined us in studio to chat about his career, 25 years of music for the morning after, and the new album, All the Beauty, and even the Syracuse University days. Today it's the EHM Breakfast Show with Harry in studio for EHM All Access with Pete Yorn. It's the HM Breakfast Show with Harry, and uh always a special treat to have in studio guests. And I think it's been a couple summers, but uh Pete Yorn is always uh good to stop by the EHM studios. Welcome back, Pete. How are you?

SPEAKER_01

I'm so good. Happy to be here.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you for coming in. This is very cool. And you brought your guitar.

SPEAKER_01

I did bring a guitar.

SPEAKER_00

Now you're kind of on vacation though, right? Like when you do come in, because I feel like a lot of people when they come out here, uh, they want to be they want to relax. Have you had a chance to relax and kind of get away from it all?

SPEAKER_01

I've had too much time to relax, and I'm ready to get in here and play some music for you all.

SPEAKER_00

Well, this is very cool. You had an album coming out, All the Beauty, in a few weeks on uh Friday, July 24th. Looking forward to that. Congrats. And then 25 years uh since uh music for the morning after. What's it like to look back and kind of think and and and I do a lot of these interviews speaking about a 25-year anniversary? Can you can you believe it?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, uh, you know, it's surreal, but it's great milestone, and uh it's cool. I've been on tour all year, kind of doing this music for the morning after 25 anniversary tour. And uh it's great just seeing everyone, seeing how like you know, people connected over the years to that record and all those songs, and I I play, you know, I play the whole record pretty much every show, and then a bunch of other stuff. But the coolest thing is I think it's like you know, when you put a record out, it's like you know, you do it, you make it for yourself. I'm very selfish artist, but I totally made it for myself, and then I you know, I didn't know who would like it. And then you see all these years later, it's like families showing up, like people who had babies when that record came out, and driving around, falling asleep in the car to like just another girl or whatever, and now they're front row with these grown, you know, 20-something year olds, and they're all together and it's meaningful to them and it's meaningful to me. And it's cool to see.

SPEAKER_00

So well, congratulations, 25 years since the record, and like I said, you said it has uh such an impact on people and over the years, and people are still discovering it too, which is a very cool, like a new generation. Um, what's it like as far as putting these records together now? You've got the new one coming out in a few weeks. Uh what's the difference, the main difference between twenty-five years ago when you first obviously just starting, but now you've got such freedom to do what what you want, so to speak.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean I was very free back then. I I pretty much stopped listening to anything and just made the record of music that I love. And I remember thinking very clearly, like, I don't know who else is gonna like this, but I really like this music, and that's that, you know, and I hope it'll last. I hope it'll hold up in ten years, or at least I'll be proud of it and not cringe, you know, when I hear it. And um now I approach the same way. Every record I made, I pretty much approach the same way, and I still make them at home studios, which I love to do. I like working at home, I don't like big studios. This new one coming out, um, it's called All the Beauty, comes out on the 24th of July, and it's my third one with my boy Jackson Phillips, who people know as Daywave. We made Caretakers together, and then we made Hawaii together, and uh, and now this is our third, so it's kind of like the second trilogy in my catalog. The first trilogy was Music for the Morning After Day, I forgot, and Nightcrawler, and now this is this caps off the the second trilogy. How did you meet Jackson? We met at a birthday party for my friend Ian Montone, great guy out in Malibu, California. And uh it was very late at night at that point. I remember it was probably 2017, 18 uh in the autumn. And uh it's a little blurry. I was still drinking a bunch back then, I think we were having fun, and we started talking, and he said he had a studio, and then maybe like five months later I ended up taking him up on his offer to go see him in a studio, and we hit it off right away.

SPEAKER_00

What makes him such a natural fit for your sound and and your process? Because it seems like you guys are have worked really well together over the past few records.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, our personalities fit very nicely. Um he's so talented. Like he I love working with like another great musician engineer, and he's just an amazing musician. He comes up with parts I think that complement things that I can't do well, and I do things that maybe he doesn't do the way I do them. So we balance each other out that way. I also think he's like a generation younger than me, and he grew up, you know, listening to things that I love. And in some ways I remember he reminded me of things that maybe like I would do, that maybe I got a little like cynical on or jaded on, like, I want to move past. And he was like, Oh, dude, I don't know about that so rad. And he kind of got me excited about some things that maybe are part of my essence that I forgot about, and we brought that back into the music in a way uh that felt fresh. And I don't know, maybe that's part of it.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, that's great. The album's out on the 24th, All the Beauty, and uh love the video for the song. Uh whose idea was to to do it with with all the dogs?

SPEAKER_01

It was my friend Ian, uh who I know through my wife. I met I met him through my wife, and he had he heard the song and he responded to it right away, and he sent me just a quick clip of this one dog following this one little dog all around town with these floppy ears. And I loved the idea of it, but it was making me dizzy. I was like, what about what if we put like a bunch of dogs or something like that? Uh his name's Ian Kennedy, and uh he goes by brain drain industries actually, but he makes videos. But um he uh he it was his idea, and then I was like, in hindsight, I'm like, it's perfect because I love my dog so much. I'm always talking about my dog, and I know how the dog, my dog, or in the dog in general, just represents presence and being in the moment and not like you know thinking about anything other than the moment that they're in, and the song kind of has that sort of uh sentiment in it. So uh I think it was a perfect sort of blend there.

SPEAKER_00

Well, why don't we do all the beauty? Okay, I'm curious, what's the uh kind of the origin story for this song? When did you write it and and what what inspired you?

SPEAKER_01

Gosh. Um I think in general, you know, I don't know when I go into it, I'm kinda always doing like the autopsy after, like, what the heck does this mean? You know, whatever. And I'm oftentimes I'm like that. Um but to me, the song very obviously in the chorus is just talking about being present, being in the moment, and not just being there, but knowing that how special it is and having the discipline to appreciate it. Like even this, like I'm thinking about something else, or I'm like, you know, just not like I just gotta keep pulling myself back into it. And I find that a lot of people are are d dealing with that or they forget to, and so the whole thing is just a reminder, like I don't wanna, you know, I don't wanna like just think about the the glory days or the good old days. I mean and like it's nice to appreciate all that and know where you came from and and if it's if it's a good feeling, great, but a lot of people get stuck in that, and this song is kind of like snap you out of that. It's like don't get stuck in that place because right now is everything.

SPEAKER_00

So that's it. The new record out on the twenty fourth, Pete Yorn live here in the EHM studios. Uh let's do the uh the title song. It's all the beauty live here at EHM.

SPEAKER_02

I was a fool around. Just want to feel again. I walked along the dark road. I must have been forgiven. Chasing us, chasing the goals, chasing us. I don't talk about what we used to do how things look better in the old days. I just want to have my map be with you in the mess of beauty of the play.

SPEAKER_00

My pleasure. Congrats on this new record. And uh really, um, how do you feel as far as you know, we we talked a little bit about the 25th anniversary. Um, how has how have you changed since that record? Because it it's interesting. I I love the fact that you I've heard interviews where you talk about now you'd keep everything the same in a way. You you didn't you wouldn't change much with it. And how do how do you feel now and 25 years later looking back, what's different as as a songwriter?

SPEAKER_01

I mean, so much has changed. It's tempting to go back. You you but like these songs sometimes are like diary entries or time capsules and they pull you right back to a moment. You play a song from 25 years ago that you wrote even longer ago than that, and it could pull you right back to that place. And you could there's a trick. You could think nothing's changed, you know, and then you remember, oh wait, man, I got a 10-year-old daughter, I got married, I did all these other things in my life. Um that I'm not that same person that I was when I wrote the song, and so much has changed. Um, but a lot is the same as well, you know. I like to think I keep it real, but um a lot has changed, and I I it it's impossible for all those experiences I've had not to go into the way I write and and what I'm interested in. And so there's always those, you know, mysteries of life that still interest me, and I I think that go into all the songs, but they're just through a different lens of you know, a little bit being a little bit older, a little bit grayer, a bit furrier beard now, you know, and it's all good. I celebrate all that stuff, so it's great.

SPEAKER_00

I love the stories that you tell about uh how you really started in music just playing the drums for your brothers. Do your brothers still play music? Do you guys still get a chance to kind of jam together or they don't.

SPEAKER_01

My brother my middle brother is the one who told me to play drums and his his his house look got messed up in that fires uh last year around the Palisades, and that was I think there's a lot of that in this record. I think moving on from that, seeing that firsthand, you know, just being stuck in that sort of yuckiness. Um but I think that you know, he he loves music and I know he's he's he wants to get a new drum set, but he's been slow about getting it, so he's gotta do it.

SPEAKER_00

That's that's interesting. I know you you started off not really thinking that music would be your career. Um and we both went to Syracuse, which I always find interesting. We were like I think we laughed by like a year in the mid-90s, and when you went you were gonna be a tax attorney, right?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, my dad wanted he thought it would be a you know, safe career choice for me to be a tax lawyer, a tax attorney, and I don't blame him, but he'd underestimated my math abilities. And freshman year I was an accounting major, and right away it became evident. I was like, I can't do this stuff. There was a course called Matrices, Matrixes, and I I had to take a summer class for that over at like William Patterson or something in Jersey. And I went, I signed up, and I sh I waited this long line to get the book, and I showed up at the class, and I'm literally in there for ten minutes, and I hear the professor talking about everything, and the syllabus is handed out, and I excuse myself to go to the bathroom, and I just jumped in the car and left, and I never went back. And then like that later that night, or a couple days later, I told my dad, I go, This isn't gonna happen. And I was very scared to do that, but he was supportive, he was like, he was my dad was like six foot five, like ex-army guy, and he was just like okay, I understand.

SPEAKER_00

And you still went back to Syracuse.

SPEAKER_01

I went back to Syracuse and I switched. I was gonna I thought maybe I'd become a lawyer. I remember liking uh to kill a mockingbird and uh Atticus Finch, and I thought maybe I'd be a litigator, a guy in a courtroom, you know, in a suit trying to win our you know, arguments and stuff like that. And so I was started, I was a uh pre-law uh political science, and then I switched from that to speech communications maybe like halfway through. And during all that time I was writing something more and more.

SPEAKER_00

I was curious, what was the music scene like there at the time?

SPEAKER_01

It was um it was me playing in my room, you know, smoking a lot. More personal than going out and performing. Yeah, I think the the thing that I finally like I would play around like in my room and people would walk by my dorm room and hear me and pop in and they'd be like, yo, what's that? What's going on? And we'd hang out and whatever. And then I remember a big moment was this some girl needed to sponsor someone for a talent show charity event or something like that, and she had known I played a little bit and she asked me if I would do a song, and I said, Oh yeah, sure, whatever. And I remember I just went and played a song uh that I had written and I won the whole thing. Everyone like it was like a big moment, and that gave me kind of the confidence to like write more songs and but I still didn't even think, you know, I think by the end of junior year I was like, Alright, I'm gonna finish school because it's important to my my parents and all that, and they're paying a bunch of lot of money for me to go here and I don't want to let them down. But at the same time I was I was writing so many songs, I was like, I want to try to you know to do music and I could always go to law school, I guess, if that's what I really want to do, but I I I don't wanna I I I didn't see it the reverse way. I didn't see like go to law school, become a lawyer, and then oh, what if I want to play music? No, that wasn't gonna work. So I did that way. How long did you uh wait till head out to LA, right after college or I graduated in um late April, I believe, of ninety-six, and it snowed up there. My family came up and it was snowing. They're like, what the heck is this? And I'm like, welcome to Syracuse.

SPEAKER_00

You were so you were you were the year that it did. Yeah, wow. Because the everyone talks about the year that it snowed on it was Mother's Day for graduation. And uh So it was May. Yes, it was early May. And it's insane, and everyone references that. I don't know if it's done it since, but uh but you were the class. That's a great way to get out to Los Angeles and some nicer weather. How long did it take between graduating and kind of getting the the record deal, knowing that?

SPEAKER_01

I know that I moved out May 16th of 1996 because it was my friend Billy DeStefano's birthday, who was my next door neighbor in Jersey. I just remember that. It's funny how yeah, you remember those things. And so I moved out within like two weeks after I graduated, very fast. I don't know when the dates were, but that's my recollection of it. And uh and then I remember, you know, thinking I'd get a rec I was like, I'm great, I'm gonna get a record deal right away. I had no idea how the music business works. Of course, I didn't get a record deal right away, and nothing's happening, and I'm trying to figure it out. But um in my mind, I'm like, well, if I went to law school, I'd be three years in law school, and so I was like, all right, give yourself three years to try and make this happen. This is your like music grad school, and I start writing better, better songs to learn how to record my room at the four track and having experiences just meeting people around LA and and and all that stuff. And uh eventually we got there, and it was about three years. I think I got signed on my birthday July of 1999. And uh and um it was a big deal, the Columbia Records. Yeah, I remember.

SPEAKER_00

That's that's so cool. Wow, it's it's it's amazing how it does take some time and uh you you what was it like to um to get out um you put out the record and what's it like at the time to have all that because you worked on those songs for a while, I'd imagine. Those were some of the songs that you probably started writing back in college. Um and those years after, how long did it take to um I guess do the next record and kind of start thinking about where you wanted to go as an artist and kind of define yourself? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Did you know right away? All a lot of the songs I had written in college that I was working on, all of a sudden at some point in like 1998, late 98, I hit a groove where everything changed after I met Walt Benson, who ended up co-producing Music Farmway after with me. But like everything except one song was new, it just came out of nowhere. Like I just hit a whole nother thing. And so those songs are 99% were were new for that m for that era for me. Um and all those old songs kind of some ended up turning out on later records, you know, like on Day I Forgot like Long Way Down was one of those older songs. I know Turn of the Century was an older song, it's on I think it's on Day I Forgot too. Um but uh yeah, I toured like 18 months straight on the first record and really went out there and worked hard and you know, I was young and didn't have anything else to do. I'm like, let's do it, and people wanted to hear it, so it was really fun. And then at some point it was like, Well, I got all these other songs. I was excited to make the second record to make Day I Forgot, and I had a lot of songs that I liked, and I just like kept the team together and we made that. But I think that came out in 2003 and I finished music for the morning after. It didn't come out until March 27, 2001, but it was done. Yeah. It was done in like late 99 or no, it was done in early 2000, so it was about a year and change before it came out. So I was itching to get record new stuff, you know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. No, that's interesting. And and uh so many different collaborations, of course, with Day Wave now, Jackson Phillips. Um and I love the fact that you did stuff with Scarlett uh over the years, and those um were fun. Do you ever think about revisiting that or working and doing some other things?

SPEAKER_01

Well, we did revisit it and we made a uh another EP called uh Apart.

SPEAKER_00

A third one. I was like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And that was fun. Yeah, we she jokes that we're gonna do the third one in 20 years or whatever the heck it is. Um Do you like do you like doing a lot of collaborations or when I'm in the mood, yeah. It's usually when I'm sick of myself. Uh then I'm like, oh let me do a collaboration, and then I kind of react to that and go on to go back and be very singular.

SPEAKER_00

I love the covers over the years uh and different ones, and I like the fact that you really try to change them um and make them your own. Uh what how do you is there certain songs that you always kind of look to cover and gotta what what in I guess what um attracts you to a song to do to your own version of it?

SPEAKER_01

Um some it's usually the lyrics uh I'm like, man, I wish I could have said that, you know, and it or it's something that the lyrics just speak to me at that time, so I want to emote that. Um sometimes it's just a melody or a song that I loved from uh being a kid at like twelve years old that I connect to. But uh, you know, yeah, every show's got covers. And a lot of times it's just to show my influences too. Like, you know, if I do a Smith song or a Bruce song um or you know, like a Howard Jones song, whatever, you know, it's just like some something that affected me over the years that I'm just kinda saying, This is where this came from, and I'll show you how I do it and how I hear it, you know.

SPEAKER_00

Uh the new record is out in a couple weeks on the 24th, All the Beauty. We want to do another song uh from the record, I think, uh, as far as um which which uh would you like to do?

SPEAKER_01

You want me to do a new a new song? That's like actually no it's up to you. I'm happy to. I could have it here and then have a nice acoustic version of it. Let's do it. I don't know how good I'll play it, but let's see. Here, this is a song called Estate. Oh wow. Uh which means summer in Italian, I believe.

SPEAKER_00

It's Pete Yorn live here in the studio doing something on a release. This is cool. This will be on the record on July 24th, Owl the Beauty.

SPEAKER_01

I think this is like track nine or ten on the record. It's deep cut, but it's gonna see Homeless way the heart is playing across the street.

SPEAKER_02

Actually I'm real excited. Someday will me woke up in a flood this morning from a furious dream. Will you make it better and send it back to me? When the beauty fades, I never noticed what we'll lose on day. Where do we go? I've been awakening on his teacher. I've been waiting for you. I can't be you and you're not near me. I'm still waiting for you. Actually, I'm real excited about the way we talk tonight. If I can win you over, it would be so lovely to try. I've been awake and all. I've been awake and for you. I can hear you when you're near me. I'll be away and for you. Home is where your heart is like an artist. Will you make it better? Send it back to me. Someday we'll meet. Home is where your heart is. Will ya make it better? Send it back to me. Someday we'll meet. Someday will meet.

SPEAKER_00

Very nice. Uh something brand new uh on release that's coming on the record on the 24th. Uh State from All the Beauty. Thanks for doing that. It's probably gonna be one of my favorites because I remember you pre um you did a song called Roses years back, I think for one of my first visits when I met you, and I've always loved that song since.

SPEAKER_02

For Arranging Time.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. So very cool. Thank you for doing that. Excited about the record out in a couple and celebrating twenty-five years of music for the morning after. But uh also looking forward to uh what comes uh in the future. Are you always writing songs? Are you always kind of thinking about where you want to go next?

SPEAKER_01

No, I'm kind of just feeling it as it comes, and uh that's the way I I do it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And uh do you still like touring and doing shows and out the road?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I do it in a way that I I may like I'm not into like going out for too long periods of time. I kind of just do it where I I like consistency where I go out pretty much every month and play like, you know, three to five shows, and then I'm home to drop my daughter to school, pick her up from school, and be home, and that's what I love. But I also love playing a few shows a month.

SPEAKER_00

What is well out of curiosity, what does your daughter think of your of your music and listening to the stuff before she was born?

SPEAKER_01

No clue. I don't think she cares, or you know, she's like Is she musical or she's playing violin at school, but she says she doesn't like it, but she picked it and she stuck with it for another year. She'll walk by a piano, play little notes. I hear her sing, she could sing a little bit, her she has like a tonality, she um she could hear her pitch, I think. But she likes dancing around and playing, you know, playing games and stuff like that. But she's great, she's amazing.

SPEAKER_00

Well, congratulations on the record, all the beauty coming out uh in just a few weeks, July 24th, and uh just congrats on such an amazing career you've built year by year and record by record. And it is very cool to see the growth. So thank you for coming in. Go Nick. I appreciate it. That's right, and we have to mention that too, the Nick shirt on the N D do you get to Jersey anytime, or do you get to go home, or is that triple knock?

SPEAKER_01

I I got flat in North Airport if that counts, but that's about it. Yeah, I'm not I'm not getting back to my hometown this time.

SPEAKER_00

But you tell a story about uh working I think you guys went to a Nick game or something when um right before you got signed, or right around that. So you've been you've been a real Nick fan through the years.

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

And it's uh it it hasn't been easy. So we we've earned it, I think.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I actually this season I was like very I mean the last few seasons I've been in, but this one actually sprung for the season, but the League Pass I watched like every game and and you know, everyone followed it, they know, and it was a big, big deal. And I you know, it's easy to forget, but it's like nice to revisit. Like in fact, two nights ago, someone sent me the like the last five minutes of the game that I like kind of edited to just relive it, and I was like, oh very that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00

Well it is it's been a long road for the next fans, and uh you're a real one from the 90s, so that's very cool. So thank you for coming and you're live here in the studio for eight, and don't forget the uh record is that all the beauty on July 24th.